What's in a Name: History, Genre, and Political Speech in Gower's "Cronica Tripertita."
- Author/Editor
- Roberts, David A.
- Title
- What's in a Name: History, Genre, and Political Speech in Gower's "Cronica Tripertita."
- Published
- Roberts, David A. "What's in a Name: History, Genre, and Political Speech in Gower's Cronica Tripertita." In Studies in the Age of Gower: A Festschrift in Honour of R. F. Yeager. Ed. Susannah Mary Chewning. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020. Pp. 135-42.
- Review
- David Roberts here reads Gower's "Cronica Tripertita" as part of the long tradition of historical writing that culminated in the eventual definition of England "in terms resembling the modern nation-state" (135). Roberts reads the CrT as a striking diversion from earlier chronicles, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae," in its willingness to name names and engage in much more direct criticism of contemporary political actors. Moreover, he suggests that, as a poet, Gower is interested in exposing the tradition of discretion as itself being a longstanding literary trope. As Roberts concludes, "[p]erhaps the greatest triumph of 'Cronica' is Gower's ability to combine his sensitivity as a poet with his role as a historian to produce a verse chronicle that maintains the veracity of the events while calling into question the poetic conventions that were driving contemporary chroniclers towards a preference for prose" (142). [EK. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]
- Date
- 2020
- Gower Subjects
- Cronica Tripertita